Falling In Love, Then Break Up After Rapid Loss Of Feelings?

[Pikesburgh]

I'm 21, almost 22. My girlfriend and I started dating 2 months ago. 6 months after she ended a 3 1/2 year abusive relationship with her ex boyfriend. I figured she would be over it. Let me run down quickly what happened then I'll get into the details.

 

She's very mature for her age, has her associate's degree and does financial work for a non profit health clinic. She also is finishing up school. In February, maybe a week after we started dating she told me she was falling in love with me. 2 days ago, she broke up with me because she told me she lost feelings over the last 2 weeks. Here's the problem. She absolutely refused to give me a chance again. She said I need to let her go. The problem is, I feel like I know what's happening even though she doesn't. She has lost weight the past month, yet looks heavier. That has to be from stress. She's been extremely stressed about work (horrible bosses, being moved around, etc.) and school (worried about failing due to an online class continuously shutting down on her computer) I feel like she's confused. Yet she says she's not. She trusts me with all of her heart. She only had 1 other partner in her life, and was on birth control then. She's a smart girl, not going to make idiot decisions generally. Doesn't smoke, doesn't cheat, doesn't go for looks. Yet she was OK with me losing my virginity to her with absolutely no protection at all. She trusted me. We had sex and she was super clingy and really close to me. I had no problem with it. But, the past 3 weeks we haven't been intimate, and that's when her feelings started to disappear. I also have OCD, which she actually BOUGHT me $40 OCD medicine to help me with my OCD. She refused to let me buy her video games, even though I wanted to. She fell for me the first 3 weeks we dated, then it all slowed down big time.

 

I don't know what to do. I need to know if someone can really fall in love and then lose all feelings in just 2 weeks. 2 months of dating may not be long, but we have EVERYTHING in common. When I say everything, I mean sports, teams, music, books, tv shows, comedies, the way we act, favorite colors, favorite foods, favorite places to travel, the fact that we wanna travel, places we wanna live, everything. Yet all of a sudden it just disappears....I'm completely heart broken, as that was the first girl I ever fell in love with. Technically, I was the first guy she ever started falling in love with. I'm leaving her be for awhile...do you think once school is over and her stress clears up some she'll come back? When we broke up she started talking about how she needed to talk to a psychiatrist about her past...stuff she cannot even tell her sister. A lot of it seems to have to do with her jerk ex-boyfriend of 3 years.

 

Here's the kicker. She says she finds me both mentally and physically attractive. I treat her perfectly. I do EVERYTHING for her. On Monday my phone wouldn't turn on, and I turned it on to FIFTEEN messages from her over the course of 8 hours. Then Tuesday she said we needed to talk. Wednesday she wanted to break up. Friday she did it in person. Does this make sense to anyone? She's extremely open and honest about things and I have little feeling there's another guy, OR if there IS another guy, she doesn't realize she likes him. But she went from being really clingy Monday, to not knowing how much she cares about me in just 4 days. Does anyone have an idea about what's going on?

[Cinnamonstix]

I think this is the case of the rebound relationship... you were her rebound and she was not over her ex. Do a quick google search about rebounds and how the feelings switch in an instant and how someone not over an ex is in a vulnerable state (ie. needy, insecure, etc). It sucks. Best you can do is give her space to get over her feelings for her ex and for you to move on. Two months is not very long to build a bond, but if you were really good together she may one day look back on you fondly and try to get back in your life... who knows.

[Pikesburgh]

That's what I thought, but she never loved her ex boyfriend. She hated him. When he texted her she ignored him. She blocked his number and whatnot, but he remained relentless. She knew he cheated on her dozens of times with many different women. And she told me she wasn't looking for a relationship for awhile, and once she got over him she wanted a relationship, IF she found one. And she used to show me messages guys used to send that just made her sick, and she felt no interest in them and actually blocked some of them regardless of how attractive they were, she wanted a genuine relationship. She felt like she found her other half in me when we met. She would talk all the time, always tell me how she cared about me but ultimately felt "I don't see you in my future, other than as a friend". But she didn't want no contact..she wants her space, but wants us to be best friends.

[Cinnamonstix]

It doesn't matter if SHE wants NC. You do NC for you to move on. If you stay in her life right not, she is not going to miss you, AND you will end up in the friend zone. By doing NC you are showing her that you are not just some guy who is willing to wait around. It shows you value yourself. So when she gets her **** together, she will look at you with only respect and good memories.

[Pikesburgh]

I'm giving her her space, and as negative as I feel right now, I still feel like she will text me within a week. Because I even said the other day that I felt like just moving on and that she should be okay since there's no feelings...yet she told me "I can't not have you in my life...I still need you in my life. I need you as a best friend". Along with meeting her parents and friends, and her getting along great with my mom, it seemed a little confusing for it to be a rebound. We planned vacations, she wanted me to watch her cats for 9 days while she was gone and actually live at her house..that's the type of trust her and her parents had for me. She planned vacations with me, which now I guess I have 1K worth of money to use that was going to be on airplane tickets, but there were too many "real relationship" things we went through, and the rebound part was only questioned by me. Nobody else thought that. I do agree with you, but some of it still doesn't quite add up. I almost wonder if she did have feelings for me, but has to get past her problems and nightmares of her ex..almost like she did like me, but the stress she's feeling is bringing her back to her last relationship.

[Cinnamonstix]

Ok, if you read the first thread I ever wrote on here, that was what my relationship was like, and I will admit I am a rebound. HE did not see me this way. In fact he was avoiding relationships but I was just too good to pass up...until his feelings for his ex caught up to him. You'll notice in my post where I share my story is that I don't mention being a rebound or much about his ex either because I didn't figure it out till later... in my last post in that thread. It was complicated by the fact that he also showed signs of depression and PTSD and seemed generally unhappy in life. I really regret not having stuck with my guns the first time I tried to break things off with him, as I could see the timing was so bad. I'm sure neither your ex nor mine actually considered us rebounds... but if there are unresolved feelings for an ex, we are "rebounds", just for the sake of defining this type of relationship.

 

The fact is, he gave me LOTS of signs. I'd never been in this situation, so I took the comparisons to his ex as strange compliments, because they were always in my favour and I was so secure in myself. Though I did find it weird that he seemed bitter towards someone HE left. At times I felt like his therapist. At the end he told me he was lost and depressed and didn't heal from his last relationship. The whole time I assumed he just had baggage from the toxic relationship and what she put him through, but now I figure he must have unresolved feelings for her as well, and that's why his feelings for me changed so suddenly. It all caught up to him the moment things got a bit more "real" between us, even though he was telling me I was the one for him before that.

 

Bottom line: when you have feelings for two people, it really muddies the waters, and when push comes to shove about who someone thinks they love, a relationship that lasted mere months can't compete with the attachment formed over years. Once they either try the toxic relationship again and realize it was a mistake or they take the time to heal, things will be much more clearer to them then. If it's meant to be, it will be.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Cinnamonstix

[Cinnamonstix]

And I will also add this: it's the most confusing type of breakup ever. You can have the best relationship in the world and be soooo compatible but it doesn't matter. It will blind side you and make you feel like you've been run over by a truck. Every other relationship that has ended for me I have always seen coming and felt a sense of relief when it ended, as things usually hadn't been working for a long time. But this - this is the worst. But now I'm wiser and will be much more careful with someone who has not been single for long and who mentions the ex too much.

[ravfour4]

Not to be a jerk, but I'm that ex hoping the guy my girl with is a rebound. We had since strong intense feelings for eachother for 3.5 years, the last 3 months we were butting heads and not loving each other as much (external stresses and too much weed smoking) and now she hopped over to some older co-worker who's married with kids.....I still text her and she responds and we hang out sometimes....and I hope one day she may come back..

[Pikesburgh]

Thank you, this really helped me. And when you word it that way, it makes a lot more sense. I really dunno what to do about the contact thing....as I'm not a very social person and she would make a great friend for me..but I don't know what to do if she contacts me and I ignore her because I'm not over her enough to become friends just yet. And won't be for awhile.

[ZiggyZoo]

Bottom line, she was nowhere near ready to be in this relationship with you. Six months is the bare minimum to be over a relationship that ended on good terms, much less an abusive one. You absolutely were a rebound, the way it developed so quickly, with her falling in love after a week. That isn't possible, I'm not sure you two were even together long enough with your two months to know if you were really in love or not. What you two had was infatuation, not true love. And she whether or not she liked her ex has nothing to do with it being a rebound. The fact that she still had feelings (even negative ones) attached to that relationship and tried to get over it with a new relationship with you is what makes it a rebound.

 

Having said that, it doesn't mean that you're not entitled to be heartbroken just the same. Any time you have feelings for someone and it ends, it hurts. But this relationship honestly had a lot of elements that needed to be resolved for it to work at all. She needs to talk to a professional about what happened with her ex. Otherwise any relationship she gets into from here on out will suffer and ultimately fail because of those unresolved issues.

 

Cinnamonstix is absolutely right, your going NC isn't up to her. If you feel its the best for you (and I totally agree that it is) then you need to do it. She's told you that she doesn't ever see you two as more than friends, and it is simply unfair of her to expect you to help her sort out her feelings about the breakup while trying to sort out your own. It shows a huge lack of respect for your feelings, to not realize that her breaking up is difficult for you and you need space if your own to get over it all.

 

Good luck, this is a horrible situation for you both. I hope she gets the help she needs, she's way too young to have this much baggage already.

[ravfour4]

You're giving me too much hope Ziggy lol my gf was saying I love you to another guy a week after a solid 4 year relationship, I know it's a rebound (although she's worked with the married guy for years), but Idk if she'll ever come back. Didn't necessarily end on great terms because I was like why the hell did you break up with me, what are you up to and ended up seeing her texting i love you to this older married dude, madness ensued.

[Cinnamonstix]

You're giving me too much hope Ziggy lol my gf was saying I love you to another guy a week after a solid 4 year relationship, I know it's a rebound (although she's worked with the married guy for years), but Idk if she'll ever come back. Didn't necessarily end on great terms because I was like why the hell did you break up with me, what are you up to and ended up seeing her texting i love you to this older married dude, madness ensued.

 

RavFour4, I don't want to give you false hope either but I will say this... I think the sooner they rebounded after a relationship and the faster it goes... the more likely they will run back to you... but for the wrong reasons. I can see from other posts you have that she wasn't holding up her end of the relationship either, so don't forget about that while you pine for her.

 

In some cases an ex might not run back to you if he/she had checked out of the relationship long before it ended and were over you already at the BU. I've done that before and hopped into a new RS without looking back. Mind you the next guy was better for me in every way and I'd known him for months prior so there was a level of comfort there. But then it still didn't work out as I had brought a lot of emotional baggage to that relationship (but did not include feelings for ex) and I think he actually had a little bit of unresolved feelings for a former ex as well. So take some consolation in that.

[ZiggyZoo]

Well, ravfour4, I was a rebound for my ex-husband, and we were married for seven years. The girl he left me for, another rebound, he also married and they were together for three years. So I don't put any stock into the belief that you just have to wait out a rebound and your ex will come running back. There were reasons why you broke up, and she's with someone else now. He may well be the love of her life, and it isn't worth your time to wait around for her.

[ravfour4]

It's hard to think a guy going through a divorce who hit on my ex for years while married is appealing to her, especially when her coworkers thought he was a creep, he's cheated on his wife before and my ex has always hated divorce, cheating and her step mom....but, they had been flirty with each other in the past so I think it's 50/50 whether it's a rebound or a "i've actually always wanted this", I think she likes that he works out a lot. Hard to think that when we were great for 3.5 years, we loved each other's families and I'm her age and doing quite well at work for my age (not to toot my own horn) that she'd rather have that drama, but hell, I have no idea what's going on in her head. She wanted me to be the "old me" and thought it would never happen - the old me was just more active, confident and social which I think I've shown her I'm already doing again (it's the true me that I wanted to be anyways) so I think I've done all I can.

 

I really blame the fact we smoked weed all the time together for like a year....it made me oblivious to the obvious distant that was happening between us. Right after she quit (and was all emotional because of it), she broke up with me.

Edited April 13, 2015 by ravfour4

[Cinnamonstix]

I think with typical rebounds they kinda just go for whoever is convenient. But sometimes that is not the case and they want a genuine relationship and then just realize later that they can't give it their all. Or they are really ****ing clueless and relationship hop, like Ziggy's ex hub.